Careening down a mountain road--

Cafe Society
1

All of a sudden I have an urge to watch a movie where the hero or heroine, whose car has been tampered with, careens wildly down a mountain road! He stomps frantically on the brake pedal, but it flops lifelessly to the floor! She saws at the steering wheel, but the car continues on its own mad course, towards a fateful rendezvous, a rendezvous with…DEATH!

What are some movies with scenes like that?

Extra bonus question: Which Hitchcock movie is it where the hero drives drunk (an attempt to murder him)? Slips my mind just now.

2

North by Northwest.

I believe happened in Bob and Doug McKenzie’s Strange Brew, and John Candy in Who’s Harry Crumb?

3

It’s not quite the same, but Jake and Elwood tamper with the Good Ol’ Boys’ Winnebago with similar effect in The Blues Brothers…

4

“No more for me, guys, I’ll take the bus…”

5

And now, a word from our sponsor.

6

Drowning Mona opens with a scene as described.

7

If I recall correctly, there is a scene like that in Wolfgang Petersen’s Shattered.

8

And now he’s rolling down the mountain
going fast, fast, fast.
And if he blows it this one’s gonna be his last.
Run to Acapulco to turn the golden keys.
Henry keep the brakes on for this corner if you please.

9

Hitchcock has a scene like that in Family Plot, too.

10

Jackie Chan’s Police Story (1985) has enough action in the first ten minutes for any three films, including an insane sequence of two vehicles plunging down a hill through the middle of a shanty town.

Also not exactly a “No brakes!!” situation, but the 1971 Spielberg film Duel includes a scene where Dennis Weaver is chased down a mountain road at high speed by the evil truck driver who bedevils him throughout the movie.

11

Not a movie, but in the episode “Welcome Home Jaime” (Part 1) of The Bionic Woman (the original series) this happens to the heroine.

12

Thanks, all; there ought to be something in my collection that fits the bill!

13

Not a movie, but the Rockford Files episode “The Trees, The Bees and T.T. Flowers” has one of those. Someone put laughing gas in Jimbo’s Firebird.

14

Every other episode of Mannix used to feature him avoiding death on a winding mountain road after an evildoer had tampered with his brakes.

By actual count, he also suffered 37 separate concussions from being whacked on the head during the series run.

15

Yup.

16

Not quite the same but Remo Williams steals a truck with bad brakes.

17

How about a song:

"Well, from there on down it just wasn’t real purdy:
it was hairpin county and switchback city.
One of 'em looked like a can full’a worms;
another one looked like malaria germs.
And right in the middle of the whole damn show
was a real nice tunnel, now wouldn’t you know?

Sign says clearance to the twelve-foot line,
but the chickens was stacked to thirteen-nine.
Well we shot that tunnel at a hundred-and-ten,
like gas through a funnel and eggs through a hen,
and we took that top row of chickens off
slicker than scum off a Loo-siana swamp."

(from “Wolf Creek Pass” by C. W. McCall)

18

If we’re doing songs, Harry Chapin’s “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” probably counts.

19

A couple of cars, a beater and a '73 Riviera, chasing and leaving the road to careen downhill in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

20

If you’re up for reading such a scene, try Stephen White’s “Kill Me”. Lots of Interstate 70 chaos.